MPO vote could kill U.S. 281 toll idea

1of 2This view shows U.S. 281, north of Loop 1604, where the road would be expanded and rebuilt into an expressway. Plans for tolls would be dropped.Photo: BOB OWEN /San Antonio Express-News

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A plan to expand U.S. 281 near Loop 1604 might soon move forward without its most controversial element: toll lanes.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization is expected to pass a resolution Monday that the northern section of the highway project should be completed without tolls if Proposition 7, a statewide ballot measure that would increase the size of the State Highway Fund, passes in November.

The expansion plan, decades in the making, involves converting the 8-mile section of U.S. 281 between Loop 1604 and Borgfeld Drive into a six-lane freeway. Chronic funding shortages yielded an initial proposal to toll part of the southern section between Loop 1604 and Stone Oak Parkway and all the northern section between Stone Oak and Borgfeld.

“We had always said that tolling was only a way to pay for the road,” said Renee Green, director of public works for Bexar County and operations manager for the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority. “If additional funding became available, then we certainly would take the toll label off it.”

Two of the highway’s six lanes would be reserved for high-occupancy vehicles such as buses and carpoolers. The HOV lanes —the first in the county — would move faster than other lanes carrying more cars.

The possibility of receiving money from Proposition 7 moved several local and state officials, including Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, to ask that those funds be put toward making U.S. 281 free for drivers. The ballot measure would transfer $2.5 billion of sales and motor vehicle tax revenue into the highway fund each year for use on road projects without tolls.

If the MPO passes the resolution to allocate the first round of Proposition 7 money to U.S. 281, other projects might have to be shelved, at least initially, said District 6 City Councilman Ray Lopez, who also is chairman of the MPO board.

“If we are passing a resolution that acknowledges we’re taking that direction and supplanting toll revenue, at some point we’re going to be short $300 million on existing projects we have in some areas of our MPO,” he said.

But Proposition 7 would provide an annual revenue stream for state highways, not a one-time payout. Because of that, projects that take a back seat to U.S. 281 in the short term could receive funding later, Lopez said.

“The answer isn’t ‘no,’ it’s ‘not yet,’” he said.

Monday’s resolution will not necessarily affect whether toll lanes become part of other roads in the future, Lopez said. The MPO has identified several underfunded projects that could be financed with toll revenue, including improvements on Loop 1604 and Interstates 10 and 35.

“What we’re saying is if Prop. 7 passes, it will go to a nontolled road,” he said. “What we’re not saying is that we’re going to do that with every other road with a tolling component.”

The agencies involved in financing the U.S. 281 expansion have only some of the $530 million needed to complete it. The $228 million southern section can be built with a combination of federal, state and local funds, but the remaining $300 million for the northern section would have to come from either Proposition 7 or toll revenue, Green said.

“It appears in all likelihood that we can get Prop. 7 money,” she said. “Otherwise, we’d have to go back to the old toll plan.”

Engineers are expected to start designing the southern section by the start of next year, but work on the northern section wouldn’t begin until 2017 if Proposition 7 money is used to fund it. Those funds won’t be released until September of that year.